SOURCE: GIBSON’S EX’S SISTER GAVE RANT TAPES TO RADAR ONLINE

It was a big day in court for Mel Gibson.

Even though neither he nor his legally challenged Russian ex girlfriend were present, their attorneys were in a two hour closed court session with the judge today.

Word has leaked to the Hollywood Reporter following the hearing, though, that a new suspect has emerged in the mystery of who handed over the faked Gibson audio tapes to Radar online: The ex girlfriends sister:

“Several sources confirm that Oksana Grigorieva's younger sister, Natalie, is suspected of having leaked the audio tapes to the online website and is currently being looked at by authorities.

"I suspect that if the authorities look at the sister, they'll find a wire transfer or a check to her from the website," alleges a source close to the case. "She and Oksana are very close."

“Another source close to the case also claims that Oksana's sister was involved in first shopping the audio tapes to various media outlets before finally making the sale to Radar.

"All the tabloids said no to the deal because they were asked to purchase the audio tapes before hearing them," says another source close to the case.

“If Oksana's sister is found to have brokered the deal at the behest of her sister, it's possible that the judge could find the Russian singer in contempt of court. Grigorieva could also be facing possible extortion charges as well based on a text and emails that she sent Gibson.

“In the text message, reported exclusively by THR on Wednesday, Grigorieva wrote Gibson that the reason she recorded him was because "you broke your agreement with me."

“Grigorieva on Thursday claimed that the only reason she balked at signing the long form settlement agreement when it was placed in front of her was because it gave Gibson unsupervised visits with their child.

"The statement is completely false. This never happened," counters a source close to the case, adding, "This is the third explanation that she's offered for why she backed out of the agreement."

We always assumed that—regardless of whether it was her attorney or someone else that shopped the tapes to Radar online—it was done at the behest of Gibson’s ex.

We are relieved to lean that it was not the ex’s attorney after all. Although well regarded in his profession (Southern California divorce lawyers), the man is somewhere north of 80 years old.

While the ex may have believed that releasing the tapes to the media, in addition to generating some short term cash, might tactically benefit her by putting pressure on Mel Gibson to pay her millions to shut her up, it had just the opposite effect.

By going nuclear on Gibson she has at once emptied her arsenal of ammunition and taken away all incentive for Gibson to pay her anything at all except court order child support (assuming that when the smoke clears she will even have custody of their child and not be behind bars for the illegal taping and attempted extortion of the action star).

Now what damage the ex was capable of doing has been done, and Mel Gibson will only benefit by definitively proving in court that the Russian faked her voice on the heavily edited audio tapes, and that as mercurial and abusive as Gibson comes across on the tapes a. he was goaded into losing his cool and b. Gibson never laid a hand on her.

Stay tuned folks. Because while some of the talking heads on cable television may still be buying the Russian grafter’s shtick, there are far too many holes and fabrications in her so called “evidence”, and this is not going to be quite the ending that ex had in mind. We are quite sure of that.